Brian May puts countryside on the agenda at Olympics closing ceremony

Guitar? Check. Wild grey hair? Check. Leather jacket with epaulettes of fluffy fox and badger? Check, check, check.

The Olympics closing ceremony may not have featured the green and pleasant land of Danny Boyle’s curtain-raiser – but Queen guitarist Brian May put the countryside back on the agenda with his, ahem, interesting outfit.

Mr May – a vocal opponent of hunting and the badger cull – sported a coat with visible fox and badger motifs during a rendition of We Will Rock You.

Dairy farmer Pete Ledbury tweeted that the guitarist was “sticking two fingers up at the people who make the countryside what it is”, while Jill Grieve of the Countryside Alliance said he had turned the ceremony into a “sideshow for his own extreme views“.

Mr May’s website declares his jacket was celebrating all wildlife “close to his heart”. The charity is called Save Me, after a Queen song. Perhaps I’m Going Slightly Mad would be more appropriate.

This news story was first published in the current issue of H&H (23 August)

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